Tuesday, November 30, 2004

I finally got the Recently Played iTunes link to update again. Since I had moved my iMac to the recording studio I haven't been playing music on that machine and no longer sync my iPod to that machine. I had been syncing to Windows and wasn't able to easily port my script to XP. Now I've got a Powerbook from work and have revised my script to upload to this server. So now you can see what I've been listening to. It won't update every 15 minutes, but will be updated periodically as I play music and sync my iPod.

The band reconvened tonight and we continued preparation for our recording. Tonight we rehearsed 6 songs that will likely be recorded.

Mr. Knowitall
Can't Say No
Lonely One
Kiss Me Goodbye
All About You
The Weather Song

I'm pretty sure I'd like to record Lonely One given the current arrangement, and I think it fits well with the other tunes. The rehearsal was rough but we did 3 full run throughs and recorded the rehearsals and listened back. Other than rusty performances there isn't much that we want to change musically. On Thursday we will print the click tracks for the tunes and record scratch tracks. At that point we should be able to start recording the various parts and will probably work on drums if I can stop traveling for work.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Saturday we ended up with Darian back at Universal and saw some of the 3d movies. That night we went to the Hard Rock and were able to go into Hard Rock Live. Darian couldn't believe how small it was, but was assured by the staff that this is the same venue used for the MTV/VH1 concerts.

I was able to spot some more KISS items on the walls as well as a lot of items from The Who.

We got back from Orlando last night. It ended up taking longer to drive back with the heavy traffic then it did going to Orlando with the heavy rain. About an extra hour of travel time and stop and go traffic the last 80 miles back was not fun.

I've finally posted the pictures from the Korea trip, as well as the pics from Orlando. There are quite a few Orlando pictures including Universal Studios and Kennedy Space Center.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

This little get away has been a bit busier than I had expected. We drove through 7 1/2 hours of rain Wednesday night and arrived to the condo about 2am. Nothing like driving with the front of a cold front. Not fun.

On Thursday we went to Universal studios, and went through the Twister experience, Earthquake, MIB, Mummy and some other things. The kids split off so this was the adult outing. The kids went to the amusement ride part of the park. That night Jacki and I walked around and ended up eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. This is the same Hard Rock that the Hard Rock live is filmed from. The place is huge and is the largest Hard Rock in the world.

Yesterday we went to Kennedy Space Center and were able to see the launch pads for the various rockets and shuttles. Space stuff is always fun and we got some pretty cool pictures too.

Today it is back to Universal and then we plan to head back first thing tomorrow morning.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

The band finally got back together this past Wednesday. A fairly unstructured practice. We ran through a few tunes, played a couple of covers including Midnight Rider, and had a good time just playing again. After about a one hour practice we took a break and I decided to begin the prep work for recording.

I'd like to have the drum tracks recorded for our EP by Christmas, which means by the first of December we should have all arrangements, tempos, and scratch tracks with click within protools. I was able to get the drums mic'd and the vocals and guitars coming cleanly into ProTools. We will record our next rehearsal and pick apart the tunes we will be recording. The good news is we should be able to reuse the scratch and click tracks for Mr. Knowitall and Kiss Me Goodbye from the demo sessions from August.

We've accepted the fact that we will not have a completed recording by Christmas and also have accepted that a 10-11 song cd is a bit ambitious. We will probably settle on 5 songs. Once we complete recording in January it will probably take several weeks to mix. Possibly a finished product we can sell will be available in February.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

I added a little feature to the front page of the site. The feature shows mostly "events" that I've gone to in the past. For instance if you are on my site today, November 17, it says I went to a Dream Theater concert in Austin Texas in 1994.

I knew the concert tickets I kept since I was a child of 9-10 years of age would come in handy at some point. If I ever get a scanner, I may scan in the old concert stubs for posterity.

Hey Ron, I've got the Cinderella and Rush shows we went to in the database of entires... Do you remember the day?

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Last weekend I bought the Apple AirPort Express. I wasn't too happy about paying $129 to try out the feature that would allow me to play iTunes through the stereo wirelessly. But I figured I'd give it a try.

I must say this product is fantastic. The AirTunes feature which is all I've used it for works flawlessly. I never realized how much I missed hearing music through good speakers. The sound quality is great as well.

The only thing that gave me a little challenge was getting the unit to properly join my linksys network running locally.

If you are on the fence about this feature it is worth it. Especially if you have a laptop that can power your iTunes.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

I just got home from our gig at The Brandyhouse. The band that was supposed to play after us cancelled so we ended up going on stage a little later than planned. Some new friends of Mike and Katie made it out so I belive out of the 4 or 5 people we knew in the crowd none of them had seen us before.

Ironically the band that was supposed to play with us was a band I had talked to about joining right before I joined The Superlatives. By the time I had coordinated phone calls and practiced the other bands demo I had already joined my current group.

It is starting to seem the music community in Atlanta is quite small.

Now I can focus back on work and family and will probably give the band a rest until later in the week or possibly next week. It is now time to get some sleep. I still haven't fully recovered from the Korea trip.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

I'm back home from Seoul for a few weeks. Its good to be back. We had a good family night tonight getting to sit on the couch and talk. I always think its funny how we have this big house yet our closest family moments are when all of us are crowded onto two cushions of a 3 cushion couch.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

I haven't seen much in Korea due to the hectic work schedule but here is one of the pictures I took from in front of the hotel.

As you walk down streets you will see the new intermixed with the old. In some ways the culture is very modern and the technology oftentimes seems more advanced than the US, however traditions, and the people seem very conservative and respect for foreigners and for elders is easy to observe, unlike the US.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Even though I'm half way around the world the US election has an unbelievable amount of coverage. It really shows that the US is THE world power. The papers both in English and Korean have significant coverage and TV is as if I'm sitting at home in the US. Results are coming in live.

Monday, November 01, 2004

I landed this morning about 6:00am Tuesday local time. They are 14 hours ahead so it would be 4pm in the afternoon on Monday in Atlanta. Somehow we missed the car that had been arranged for our trip to the hotel and we ended up taking a cab that hadn't been to our hotel before. After an 1hr plus cab ride we got to the hotel and checked in around 8am or so. Suprisingly,getting through customs was a breeze, even with my sruffy passport photo.

I had a bad headache took a couple of hour nap, found some advil from a co-worker of mine at the hotel and as of now I'm in good shape. Sitting on the 35th floor in an executive area and hope to have some pictures for the site.